A Little More Hate in the World
by Bottlebrush
Summary: Remus Lupin learns how to hate. What happens when a patient person is pushed too far. Implied slash SBRL. Character deaths. PostHBP. One shot, complete.


Title: A Little More Hate in the World

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter world or its characters. J. K. Rowling does.

Summary: Remus Lupin learns how to hate. What happens when a patient person is pushed too far. Post-HBP. Implied SBRL. Character deaths.

Remus Lupin had never hated anyone in his life. He didn't know how. He was a complete innocent, as far as hate was concerned.

Remus didn't even hate Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who bit him. At first, he considered the werewolf guiltless, because he knew how easily his and his parents' safeguards could fail, and he could bite someone, without ever intending it. Then, when he learned that the truth was more complicated than that, he still could not hate Fenrir, who had been cursed just as Remus had. Even months of living close to him engendered only feelings of disgust for some of Fenrir's unsavoury habits. If Fate had dealt Remus a different hand, if his path had never crossed that of Albus Dumbledore, would Remus have been any better than Fenrir? Contemplating Greyback, Remus felt an almost unbearable compassion touched with revulsion. Remus did not hate Fenrir.

Remus did not hate Severus Snape. Severus had been willing – eager – to see both Remus and Sirius consigned to something far worse than death. Did he not deserve hate? But Remus could not think of Severus without remembering episodes of bullying, of ganging-up four against one, of childish cruelty never reconciled. Severus made Remus feel guilty, something which would itself have been enough to make another man hate him. But Remus focused his guilt inward, not outward. He did not hate Severus.

Remus did not hate Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh yes, at the moment she killed Sirius, Remus's anger had been such that, had he been free to act on his own will, he would have obliterated her without a second thought. But he had not been free. He had been occupied in restraining Harry from following Sirius through the Veil. If Harry had died, then Sirius's death would have been for nothing, and that could not be tolerated. So he had held on to Harry, and let Bellatrix escape. Later, calmer, he realised Bellatrix was not a murderer. She was a warrior, a woman of courage and passion and loyalty, those same qualities that Remus had loved in Sirius. In Bellatrix, they were perverted to the service of Darkness. She was Sirius's mirror image, his dark twin, and she had killed in battle, as Sirius would have done. Remus did not hate Bellatrix.

Remus did not hate Kreacher. That wretched, pitiable thing which had outlived the masters it loved and which in its old age was compelled to serve one whom it despised, was not worthy of hate, however hateful its actions had been. Remus did not hate Kreacher.

Remus was not a saint. He did not love his enemies. But he didn't hate them either.

Back in 12 Grimmauld Place, once again Order HQ by courtesy of Harry Potter, Remus was seriously questioning whether his life was worth living. Freed from the burden of Fenrir – his cover having been blown in the battle at Hogwarts – he was now labouring under the burden of Tonks. He had withstood nearly a year of her pestering attentions, feeling at times actually thankful to escape to the company of the werewolves, but now to her demands were added those of his friends and co-workers in the Order, people like Molly and Minerva, people he liked and respected and whom he desperately wanted to like and respect him. So he had made a painful effort to comply. The trouble was, nothing he did seemed to be enough. When he stroked her nasty spiky hair, when he kissed her cheek, when he hugged her on meeting and parting, she always seemed to want more, sometimes letting her wants be known in unseemly ways. He tried to convince her that some things were better left until marriage, and that marriage itself was better left until the War was won, but she only pointed to Bill and Fleur, whose wedding plans were steaming merrily ahead regardless of danger. Life had been miserable enough for Remus sometimes, but he couldn't remember a time when it had been so bloody _difficult_. He had come to believe his only hope was an attack by Voldemort's forces and a preferably speedy and painless death.

Now, after a tiring day of translating propaganda leaflets into Gobbledegook and Mermish, he was ready for bed. Unfortunately, so was Tonks.

"I'm going upstairs now," she said, adding coaxingly "Come with me, love?" She held out her hand to him.

In that moment, a year's bottled-up grief, rage and frustration exploded, and Remus Lupin learned to hate.

_How _dare_ she call me that? That's what _he_ called me. Those words, those gestures, they were _his

He hated her. He hated her ludicrous hair, her heart-shaped face, everything that was hers.

How can this be, that the brightest star is dead, and yet this loathsome maggot lives on?

Hate was born in agony and burst forth from him, concentrated, focused, energised by his magical strength, without his will, without his knowledge even. It had no need of a wand, nor of words of power; it _was_ Power. It was one of the two ancient opposing Forces that in the beginning had made the universe and everything in it. It swept forward with the strength of lightning, of the earthquake, the tsunami, the hurricane, elemental and unstoppable. It found Tonks, destroying her body and freeing her bewildered soul. Unspent, it sought another object for its fury, and, finding none, it rebounded on its still-uncomprehending originator.

Next day Kingsley, dropping by to see why Tonks hadn't turned up for work, found the barely-recognisable remains of two of his friends. He concluded that the Enemy had unleashed a new and deadly weapon, but though he transported the bodies to St Mungo's, where they were carefully examined by the most knowledgeable Healers, he never found out any more about it.

Neither did the two witches, Minerva and Molly. But they shed some easy tears and exchanged platitudes at the funeral, which made them feel virtuous. So some good came of it, after all.


End file.
